Senate committee backs AUKUS over concerns treaty ‘unfairly weighted’ against Australia [Video]

A bipartisan committee has brushed aside concerns about unfairness to back the AUKUS treaty, while urging governments to make nuclear waste storage a “priority”.

The Senate’s joint committee on treaties decided the agreement, and the nuclear-powered submarines it will eventually deliver, would give Australia a “clear advantage” in the “most complex and challenging strategic environment since the Second World War”.

The inquiry into the broad military alliance with the US and UK heard concerns from Australian National University law Professor Donald Rothwell and others about the wording of the agreement being too heavily in favour of London and Washington.

He said AUKUS offered “an enormous amount of flexibility” for the UK to US to withdraw, without giving Australia the same leeway, describing the agreement as “somewhat exceptional”.

The international law expert argued the deal handed Australia all the …